LGBT History Project Inspires New Online Archive

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

SF STATE NEWS -- Two years ago, an exploration of U.S. perceptions about Canadian sexual politics took Professor Marc Stein on a journey that led him to a new understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues around the globe. The result? A new online archive of gay and lesbian magazines dating back more than 60 years that includes information from six regions around the world. According to Stein, Canada decriminalized homosexual acts three decades before the U.S., accepted gays in the military nearly 20 years before the U.S. and legalized gay marriage 10 years before the U.S., “and those are just three legal signs of a difference in the culture of the two countries.” The project was funded by Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council when Stein was a professor of history at York University in Toronto. (Stein joined SF State in fall 2014.)